


Waking

by Haberdasher



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17089253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: A story based off the writing prompt "In a world where terminally ill people regularly switch bodies with death row inmates, you wake up after such a procedure."





	Waking

The moment you return to consciousness, you can tell that something has gone terribly wrong.

The whole idea of the procedure, as you understood it, was that you would wake up healthy, albeit in a different body. It was a disconcerting process, and one that came with its fair share of practical drawbacks, but was nonetheless much better than the alternative, which was dying painfully over the next few weeks as your cancer progressed. As you grew too weak to leave your bed, you eventually concluded that anything was better than succumbing to your illness, even stuffing somebody else in your body to let them do the same. (You did, for the briefest of moments, feel a twinge of guilt, of pity for the inmate who would suffer and die in your place- but death had already been decreed for them, the punishment allotted for only the severest of crimes, so you might as well let their inevitable passing benefit you.)

But now, waking up after the surgery, you didn’t feel well at all.

You did know that everything wasn’t going to be perfect the moment you woke up. This was a major surgery, after all, and even the smoothest surgery came with some side effects. The nausea, the pain, the fatigue- that much you had expected, though it would have been nice to do without.

But why did everything look so blurry- that wasn’t normal, right? No, it couldn’t be. And you’d had  _brain_ surgery, so why was it your stomach that hurt most of all?

Part of you wondered if somehow the surgery had all been a sham, but one glance at your arm disproved that- your arm was hairier than normal, and you were missing that birthmark on your left wrist, and it just generally looked off, looked notably different than your arm had ever looked before, setting off an alarm bell deep in your brain that you’d have to learn to ignore for the rest of your life. This was your body now, whether your mind was ready to accept it or not.

Also there was… some sort of black mark on your arm, partially covered by the thin sleeves of the hospital gown.

Slowly, carefully, you tugged on the sleeve of your gown and squinted at the mark that it was hiding, ignoring the twinge of pain that came with every movement, the nausea that was building up by the second.

The words were hard to make out through your rapidly blurring vision, but you persevered until you felt confident that you had accurately deciphered them, if no longer confident in anything else.

_If I can’t have this body no one can_

You shiver, and only partially because of the cold that now engulfed you.

Yes, you thought as you closed your eyes and succumbed to the fatigue that penetrated every part of your body, something clearly went terribly wrong.

(Precious hours later, they learned too late that the inmate assigned to you, having found out beforehand of their imminent fate, had smuggled a bottle of antifreeze into their cell and downed it all.)


End file.
